Chicken Cordon Bleu

Some Steakhouse Staples

Creamed Spinach, Sirloin Steak, Asparagus

An American classic - steak and spinach. I was doing my regular casual walk by the meat aisle, coyly glancing at the beef cuts while saying quietly to myself, "well, there's no hurt looking" when the thick red slabs convinced me otherwise. It would be steak tonight.

For the steak, I did my usual recipe: salt + pepper and olive oil, searing both sides in a cast iron for two minutes before finishing it in a 500 degree oven. For the asparagus, I sauteed it in the steak pan while the steak was resting after cooking. The spinach took some time, slowly cooking down an entire pot's worth of greens into a half cup of cooked spinach. I'll post the recipe below, which included some milk and butter (didn't have cream) and garlic. I also added some salt and pepper to taste.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/04/creamed-spinach-to-die-for/

White Guy Stir Fry

Rice, Caramelized Onions, Snow peas, Cheese.

To all you cooks out there, this is not actually a stir-fry. It's nothing close. "What is it?" you might ask. Well, it's a made up dish of things that I thought would be delicious together. Maybe I cooked whatever was left in my fridge at the time, or maybe I just walked around the supermarket thinking, "what would be AWESOME to eat in a half hour?" So, after getting back from practice at 9:00 pm, I lit up the pans and got cooking.

For this meal, I cooked rice on the side while slowly caramelizing onions with some butter and olive oil. After they were almost done I threw in the snow peas, which cook quickly. A pinch of salt and sugar enhanced the flavor of the onions, and I threw it all on top of a bed of steaming rice. Lastly, I added some semi-hard cheese I had in the fridge to give the meal a salty and sour kick. the chunks of cheese quickly melted between the rice and vegetables and it all turned into a great dinner.

Nothing Special

A simple dinner of seasoned Chicken with sauteed Asparagus.

I know, it seems like I'm repeating meals. I am. There were some nights where I came home too exhausted to cook gourmet, and a simple asparagus and chicken dinner was just what I wanted to make. Nonetheless, it was easy and very tasty. For this chicken, I used a conglomerate of different spices. From what I can remember, the main spices were: salt, garlic powder, oregano, paprika, and a pinch of sugar.

To cook the meat, I used my perfect cast iron oven-cooking technique discussed in previous posts. For the asparagus, I threw it in a pan with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Easy. Good.

RIce and Brats

Another night of Sausages and pan-fried Rice.

So, I really liked the dinner I had the previous night. It was absolutely tasty, so I had to make it again. This time, my sausage of choice was one of Milwuakee's touted Brats that everyone loves here. They were good. For the rice tonight, I took the pan-frying a step further. In addition to crisping up the rice in the cast-iron with some spices and olive oil, I poured over it the water used to simmer the sausages in the other pan. This gave the rice a real meaty flavor, but nothing too strong. After simmering, covered, in a half inch of water, I fried the brats in the pan alongside the rice.

A Tale of Two Sausages

Two fresh Sausages, Asparagus, and Pan Fried Rice

Oh boy, this was a tasty dinner - even tastier than it looks. It's worth going into my cooking method for this meal, which I'm pretty proud of looking back.

So, for the week leading up to this dinner, I had been slowly seasoning my cast iron pan with fat from several steaks, multiple rounds of bacon, and other juicy meat drippings. I knew it was time to cash in on the flavor I had put into the pan. I started this meal by cooking a pot of sticky rice in my rice cooker. I recently switched to Japanese sushi rice for its flavor and great consistency; the one pain with it is that it must be thoroughly washed before cooking, else it gets overstarched and the rice cooker will foam over. Next, I simmered two fresh artisan sausages I picked up in Whole Foods in around an inch of water, with a cover on the pan to allow the whole sausage to cook.

After the rice and sausages were done, I tossed them into the sizzling hot cast iron pan, searing and glazing the sausages. With some spices and a drizzle of olive oil, I pan-fried the rice, allowing it to soak up the meat flavor from the pan. The asparagus got thrown into the original sausage pan, with a quarter inch of concentrated water that had soaked up flavor from the sausages. I added some oil to the water, and after the asparagus had soaked up all the flavor and the water boiled off, I sauteed them to give them a nice outside.

Plated together, this meal was great. The rice had a deep meat and seasoning flavor, but was still bland enough to offset the sharp flavor of the sausage. The asparagus still had its hearty flavor, but the savory sausage flavor had really penetrated into the vegetable. This was one great meal.

A Delectable Breakfast

Extra thick, smoked deli Bacon, Fried Eggs (over easy), Rosemary Bread drizzled with olive oil.

Well, I forgot to blog for the majority of this summer. So, I'll be posting mostly pictures without much commentary. But this delicious breakfast was the result of finding the Whole Foods near me. I couldn't resist buying delicious food, and I had a great breakfast the next day to show for it. Yum!